Twin Cities Metro-wide Traffic Micro-simulation: Feasibility Investigation

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
3:00 p.m.– 4:30 p.m., CST

Carlson School of Management Building, Room 2-207
321 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis
University of Minnesota Twin Cities - West Bank

As traffic demands increase, the economic importance of effective traffic management is more and more evident. To reduce congestion, many countries are investing heavily in building roads and in improving their traffic control systems. However, because traffic management improvements are costly, alternatives must be carefully evaluated for their impacts on the entire system. Realizing this problem, numerous metropolitan areas have chosen to invest in the creation of metro-wide simulation systems. Such undertakings are far from simple: microscopic simulation requires a lot of information even for a small-scale application. But the potential benefits have encouraged numerous cities—including Madrid, London, Barcelona, and Singapore, as well as larger regions such as the German state of Hessen—to pursue simulation systems. Here in the U.S., preliminary investigations of metro-wide simulation models have started in New York City, Columbus, and other metropolitan areas.

This workshop will present results from an extensive search of completed and ongoing large urban simulation projects. This research is the first step toward the creation of a Twin Cities metro-wide microscopic simulation model. Its objective is to evaluate the feasibility of such an undertaking, taking into account local needs and capabilities. For reasons that will become evident in the workshop, most examples are from projects outside the U.S. These examples have been discussed with several local stakeholder groups in an attempt to understand local needs and the projects such a large simulation model will have to support. A summary of these findings will also be presented, along with concluding remarks on the necessary features a simulation application must possess in order to meet the needs of Twin Cities transportation agencies.

Download PowerPoints of this workshop

• Twin Cities Metro-wide Traffic Micro-simulation: Feasibility Investigation (10.2 MB PDF)

Speakers

Panos Michalopoulos, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota

John Hourdos, Research Fellow, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota

Workshop webcast

A free video webcast of this event was provided by the Center for Transportation Studies. If you were unable to view this workshop live, you can view a recording of this webcast.